The process is laughing at me

What has become so difficult?

Is it the antidepressants numbing me? Have they always? Have I just never named it such?

If it is, well then I guess there’s a part of me that likes to be “numb” because it feels like I can handle things.

I never considered I was being numbed.

But the artistic process has become increasingly harder.

My conscious mind is way too conscious.

I feel there are things I’m supposed to write about. There’s perfect lines and perfect innuendos and then I forget I’m supposed to be expressing and not writing for a grade.

I don’t seem to have that same grasp of “hitting the nail on the head” that I did before. I sit down with these instruments with an already formed intention that this is FOR something; for others, for a grander purpose, for finishing. I’ve lost touch with it for me, for healing, for self-expression.

I’m so constantly with myself these days I find it harder to distance from myself. “And isn’t it ironic” that I spend all this time alone and I feel further away.

Before the pandemic there were people and places and now there’s really just me and Bobby and one place.

I don’t feel sad, but I feel… something missing that I can’t put my finger on.

I feel oddly… unexpressive, which is new.

I keep trying to put the pieces together to figure out why and I’m coming up blank.

Maybe people and places are actually more important for my process than I thought.

I started an album with an intention and a concept and I don’t feel the need for it anymore.

But I have material, so do I finish it because I started it?

Shit, I should write an album just about being here, being in the midst of so many fucking ants (we get random ant infestations; I’ve spent a lot of time watching them defy gravity — walking on ceilings, dragging ant corpses and pieces of cat food around).

But that’s what everyone says, “I should do this,” then you start it and then you don’t finish it, and then you feel different.

Why is it hard to think about how I feel? Is that being numb? When I smoke weed I’m not numb, I feel intensity, sometimes good sometimes bad. Should I smoke more weed to help my creativity?

Because my creative mind has been so dormant I think it’s also taking a toll on my self-image. If I’m not creative, then what am I? I have to keep proving to myself I’m an artist because if not I am a poser.

I have to finish something before I begin the grad school application process because then, I really won’t have time.

You have time right now! So do it! But… it doesn’t work like that.